It was so busy yesterday that I had to bail on going to council to hear the decisions on these two issues. I’ll be catching up. Although there’s been lots of coverage of this in other media, I have a feeling there are some subtleties here that aren’t being caught. Back to you later.

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We media types had a field day yesterday, phoning up everyone in the world with any kind of public position who might be guilty of accepting free Olympics tickets. Here’s the Globe’s take on it, which I helped out with. I can hardly wait until we start printing the lists of business people getting free […]

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Oh, everyone was going gaga today over the city’s protocol guide (or as they spell it in their doc header, protocal guide — meaning first (proto) and heat (cal), I guess), as though we would all be fined by the TransLink police if we didn’t follow the rules. Of course, it’s the kind of thing […]

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Vancouver has been tussling with the issue of condos in its downtown business district for a while. There’s still a debate going on between the planning department, which is trying to preserve a strong core of office-only space and a substantial inventory of office space throughout the downtown peninsula, and developers, who have developed a […]

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A big splash yesterday as Gastown developer Jon Stovell and ITC Construction announced the arrival of micro-lofts to the city, at 270 square feet and renting for an average of $725. My story in the Globe is here, though it’s only the beginning of the saga. I’m curious to know whether this could happen with […]

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In the ongoing debate on whether the Olympics is going to wreck or save our province, I offer this latest news release: MEDIA RELEASE |  JANUARY 25, 2010 No evidence of a post-Olympics boom or bust for host city real estate prices: UBC study Cities that win Olympic bids experience neither boom nor bust in […]

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Yikes. The email that can really wreck your day or life went out yesterday at city hall. I’m just digesting this, but will post it for now. Welcome your comments. I do note here that it appears that the city has managed to avoid about half of the planned layoffs. From:    COV Broadcast Server    Sent:           […]

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There’s been a lot of concern in my neighbourhood over the planned social-housing project at the corner of Broadway and Fraser, just the latest of what seems like an ongoing series of neighbourhood unhappiness over density, towers, or social housing. Cheryl Rossi at the Courier has done a story here on what the active neighbourhood […]

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The TransLink story the last year has been a regular soap opera (ok, municipal version): mayors band together to pressure provincial government for more sources of funding, complete with news conferences and various other tactics; province makes many snarky remarks about operations of TransLink spending and orders a review; CEO, freshly recruited from New York, […]

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Another day, another Olympic surprise. Although many people knew there’d be an impact on city services because of the Olympics, some are being caught unawares by how extensive they are. My story on this here.

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